In the Mind of Stalin [Hardcover]

On 1 October 1939, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty and soon to be the UKs wartime leader, described Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The same can certainly be said of Stalin. How can this paradox of a man, who on the one hand had once exhibited great tenderness and kindness to his daughter Svetlana, and on the other sent millions  including members of his own family - to their deaths, be explained?It is impossible to quantify the total number of deaths attributable to the policies of Stalin, but the Excess Mortality (i.e., deaths over and above what would normally have been expected during the period in question) gives an approximate figure in excess of 40 million.However, this is only part of the story of the amount of misery inflicted by the Stalin regime through torture, deliberate starvation, neglect, separation from loved ones, cold and hypothermia (e.g. in the prisons of Siberia), which is unquantifiable and unimaginable.Svetlana confessed that she would never undertake to explain what motivated all my fathers actions, simply because I do not possess the psychological genius of [Russian novelist] Dostoevsky, who knew how to penetrate into another mans soul and examine it from within.On 1 October 1939, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty and soon to be the UKs wartime leader, described Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The same can certainly be said of Stalin.There is compelling evidence that Adolf Hitler was a schizophrenic. As regards the other principal mass murderer of the 20th century, Stalin, no satisfactory explanation of his psyche has ever hitherto been given.With his medical background, the author is uniquely placed to delve into the mind of Stalin.Accounts exist, albeit sparse but highly significant and valuable, of Stalins childhood, in which he endured extreme violence and cruelty.Modern day psychiatrists state that childhood experiences can be the key tolg